


Goddess of the Guiding Star

by Ashtree11



Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Goddess AU, cuz why not right?, mythology AU, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27853678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashtree11/pseuds/Ashtree11
Summary: Five hundred years ago, the goddess Polaris came into existence, left to her own devices to navigate the cosmos. With the astrolabe at her hip, The Observatory transports her to dozens, hundreds, thousands of systems. She names stars and documents planets, filling pages of tomes that line the walls of the formerly empty Observatory that she now calls home.Three hundred years ago, Polaris was once revered as a Goddess by generations of travelers, merchants and sailors alike.Not anymore though. Not for a long time.
Relationships: Jesse Faden/Emily Pope
Comments: 26
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so this is an idea that took weeks to finally be free from my mind... i have no idea how long it's gonna be but that's the fun part, isn't it? it will be jesse/emily at some point, i just gotta parse out the 'how' first haha

Cold. Cold is the first thing that Jesse perceives in this inky void. Cold has her enveloped, frozen in the sort of cold that is almost scalding after being exposed to it for so long. There is a stinging in her fingertips and cheeks that gives way to the next sensation that returns to her:

Weightlessness. Her arms float at her sides, she’s sure of it. Her legs are less obvious but she knows that they are hanging just as useless. She can’t move them, though it’s too tiring to even try so she doesn’t.

Moments later, her eyes slowly peel open and she’s surrounded with blue. Water? She’s in water. And there is shimmering. Blue lights, fracturing like crystals, dance in her vision as she stares, illuminating the wisps of red hair above and around her, and trace bubbles floating from her nose and mouth.

Then, she feels a tug on her torso. Limp as a doll, Jesse is lifted up, up, up, until finally she breaks through the surface. The rush of water leaving her ears is the first thing she hears. The second is her painful gasps for air. Her lungs burn like a bonfire, as if suddenly remembering its function and realizing the depravity it had experienced. Harsh breaths puff in clouds through chapped, parted lips. All the while, she floats higher with water droplets falling from her clothes like rain.

She blinks once, twice, three times. Her eyes, still filled with waltzing cerulean, gradually come into focus of her new surroundings and the breaths she heaved for leaves her again. Where she had been floating in a watery void, she was now staring up at a vast expanse; a glittering, swirling cosmos; infinity.

Clouds of nebulas in colors she’s never seen before, clusters of stars, planets, and constellations, all of it spread before her. There’s so much and as much as she wanted to commit every detail to memory, she couldn’t. She has no clue of who she is aside from her name, or where she is or why, but as seconds and minutes passed, the submission to the infinity and the unknown washes a wave of calm over her.

The dancing crystals concentrate over one of the twinkling stars in a circular pattern, coaxing her right arm to rise up and reach for it. She flinches in surprise when the star jumps. She pauses, fingers curled with uncertainty, then tries again, this time grasping the little light between her thumb and forefinger. It plucks off from the galactic tapestry easily and a ripple is left in its absence.

Jesse marvels at the sight of the fluttering starscape, reminding her of a lake after a stone skipped over it; a memory she feels is her own, and yet it’s distant in her own mind. Like an echo whispering in the back of her mind, or pale afterimage lingering in her retinas. She looks at the star, smaller than a pea, between her fingers. When she lowers and turns her hand, the star triples in size before she could even blink. Now it rests comfortably in her palm, shining just as brilliantly, if not more. 

She realizes just in time that she has been descending and her bare feet touch down on the surface of the water she emerged out from moments ago. 

Standing straighter, Jesse finally looks around, finding herself in the middle of an ocean; dark yet luminous as it reflects the cosmos above and stretching on as far as her eyes can see. She nearly assumes it to be empty had her gaze not caught on a structure on the horizon, too far to truly see.

Jesse takes a careful step forward. She stumbles slightly on weak knees, her arms spreading out automatically to retain a semblance of balance. The water beneath her shifts and laps at her soles, yet it did not let her fall through no matter how much she expected it to.

She kicks at it experimentally, smiling in awe when the splash catches the light of the nebulas and shimmers with stars for a moment before falling back down. The star pulses warmly in her palm, like it was encouraging her, guiding her to do  _ more _ . So she did. She takes another step, followed by another, then another, and another until she feels her full strength return and she is sprinting across the water. Exhilaration fills her chest, bubbling out in a hearty laugh. Running feels good, like she’s done it dozens of times. Meanwhile, the star pulses faster the closer she gets to the building and the first thing she notes is the large dome that capstones it. What could it be?

Suddenly, her feet no longer touch the water as Jesse feels herself being propelled upwards. Startled, she flails her limbs, throwing off her momentum and she plummets back down. Colorful, nebulous water splashes around her when she impacts ungracefully against it. Good thing no one was around to see that.

With a groan, she picks herself back up. The star pulses, softer this time as if telling her to try again. “Okay, okay,” she whispers to herself as she wipes the water from her face, gets a running start, and jumps. Wind rushes past her ears along with a shaky exhale that breezes from her lips. She stares down at herself warily, conjuring every ounce of will from within herself and the star to  _ not _ fall.

“Whoa!” She drops a few feet and her eyes screw shut on instinct, but she manages to catch herself. Her hold on the star is vice, yet it pulses comfortingly all the same.

Inhaling steadily, Jesse ever so slightly leans forward and... flies. It’s slow at first, but she’s  _ flying _ . Giddiness wells in her stomach and she presses on faster, faster, faster. It’s only when the structure is just within reach that she slows down to take in its scale. The building is a wide cylinder with no windows and the dome resting atop it is breathtakingly large and made of smooth, polished glass trimmed with dull bronze in a design too dark to see. Titanic double doors dotted with engraved silver constellations greet her as she carefully lands at the base of a short staircase leading up to them.

What kind of building was this? What was inside? Should she just... walk in?

She climbs the steps and shoves her shoulder against one of the doors. As large as it is, it opens without resistance. “Hello?”

The star illuminates the room, but there isn’t much to reveal. It’s sparse and colorless save for the sleek mosaic floor of lapis and sapphires. A wardrobe sits in the far corner with its single door ajar, inviting her to look inside. But when she reaches the center and the star glows brighter. Wardrobe forgotten and curious, she holds the star up in her open palm. 

It rises slowly, hanging suspended for a moment for a breath before shooting around the perimeter of the room in a spiral, trailing light like a comet and bringing the building to life from the ground up. Brass gears and trinkets regain their luster when the light passes over them, the dome groans and creaks like old joints relearning how to move. The star spins up and up and up until it reaches the very top and stills and... darkens.

For a moment, there is only dark and Jesse’s soft exhales of anticipation. 

Then, all at once, the room is flooded with color and fluorescents. Jesse’s eyes sting at the sudden change but she couldn’t bear to look away for a second. The glass dome projects the outside cosmic starscape into the room in a brilliant recreation. Galaxies zoom by, magnified into clusters of solar systems that fly past her while in their respective orbits and ceaseless travel through the expanse. She bent over to look at a solar system in closer detail, admiring its variety of planets and the asteroid belt that surround its outer ring.

**You have Awakened/Ascended,** comes a chorus of garbled voices.

She jumps, her head on an alert swivel for the source. She doesn’t find anyone in the room with her, but she does find an upside down pyramid, looming and imposing against the tranquil tapestry of the dome, that certainly wasn’t there before. “Who are you?” she asks.

The response sounds strange, not like any language she’s ever heard, yet she can understand it somehow.  **We are The Council/Elders/High Gods/The Board. Transcending Time/Space/Dimension.**

Her mind boggles, picking out the words individually rather than as a full sentence. The dancing blue crystals from before reappear in her vision, leaving a vague impression of an explanation. Whether it was her intuition or some other force at play, she couldn’t discern. But she does learn that whoever— _ whatever _ —this ‘council’ was, it isn’t something that wants to be understood beyond the superficial. Jesse also gets the feeling that it’s not just an explanation, it’s a warning. 

“What...what do you want with me?”

**Diligence/Hard work. Perform your duties. Welcome home/to The Observatory, Polaris/Goddess of the Guiding Star.**

“Goddess? Me?” she asks, almost scoffing at the notion. She looks down at the worn, mismatched colored tunic she’s wearing, as if the title had suddenly turned them into extravagant regalia befitting such a role. But she is unchanged. Plain.

Her gaze draws upwards to the glowing star that breathed life into The Observatory and served as the centerpiece of the star map filling the room.  _ The Guiding Star _ , she surmises. And if this was an observatory, that made the rest of this projection a map of some sort? “What am I supposed to do?”

**Much to learn/learn on your own.** The words grow fainter and the black pyramid fades. **Trial and error/all in due time. We will speak again soon Polaris.**

“Wait! What do you mean? How am I supposed to learn? Are there others like me?”

She couldn’t be the only one right? Waking up to the sight of infinity stretched before her, The Observatory can’t be all there is, can it? 

But she receives no answer. Left alone in the middle of a projected cosmic sea, Jesse-Polaris stares helplessly after the disappearing pyramid until it’s out of sight. Not for the first time since her awakening, she feels small. Staring into space will have that effect, but where that had been humbling and beautiful, this was overwhelming and endlessly, endlessly terrifying.

Learn on her own? Where would she even  _ start _ ?

Crystals pull her attention to the wardrobe in the corner. In a frazzled daze, she walks over to it, reaching out for the singular door that hung ajar. It was old and what little paint remained faded beyond recognition, but stood proud with its sole content within it. A long sleeveless coat the color of nebula clouds that shift and change and twinkle with nameless constellations greeted her. Surprisingly, it felt soft to the touch and, when she goes to put it on, there is a semblance of comfort to be found. Despite its lack of sleeves, warmth settles and swaddles her. And though it starkly contrasts with the rest of her clothing, there’s no doubt about whether or not she should be wearing it. 

Then her eye catches a glint of brass at the bottom of the wardrobe: a circular device the size of her hand with etchings lining the outer rim and a short chain at the top. The face of the trinket looked to be layered with thin plates that she’s able to manipulate and align against the various etchings, though she had no clue as to what the overall function is. Even so, she hooks it to the sash that acts as a sort of belt at her waist, unable to shake the feeling that she’s seen such a device before. 

A little calmer now, Jesse-Polaris returns to the center of the room and takes a deep breath. Where should she start?

She takes a moment to look about the plethora of solar systems floating around her before cupping her hands beneath the one she was admiring before, the one with the asteroid belt in its outer orbits. A little blue planet with swirls of white and masses of green calls to her in particular.

With her mind made up, the rest of the projection fades, and the solar system in her hands rises up to meet The Guiding Star overhead. It pulses once, sending a ripple through the glass dome until a seam forms at its center and opens with a reverberating groan to reveal the blue planet in all its splendor.

***

Five hundred years ago, the goddess Polaris came into existence, left to her own devices to navigate the cosmos. With the astrolabe at her hip, The Observatory transports her to dozens, hundreds, thousands of systems. She names stars and documents planets, filling pages of tomes that line the walls of the formerly empty Observatory that she now calls home. 

She assumes it’s what The Council wants her to do. They haven’t disputed her thus far. 

All the while, she returns to the blue planet (‘Earth’, as she comes to know it) leaving The Guiding Star for travelers to use in their own endeavors to explore their home. 

They look up at the night sky to see the star shining brighter than any gem on the finest jewelry; the star that remained fixed and reliable as ever to anyone who knew how to read Earth’s limited view of the starscape. 

***

Three hundred years ago, Polaris was once revered as a Goddess by generations of travelers, merchants and sailors alike. 

Not anymore though. Not for a long time. 

Two centuries is a short reign of a deity as she came to learn later on. For as young as she is compared to others like her, it’s almost pitiful. But she doesn’t mind it, nor will she ever. And all because of one mortal woman who would unwittingly change it all.


	2. Chapter 2

Emily wakes with a startled gasp, just in time to find herself lurched from the cot she had been resting in and feel the full brunt impact of wooden floorboards. While her arms managed to somewhat break her fall, it didn’t save her dignity in the slightest. Thank goodness no one wasn’t around to see.

Once her rapidly beating heart calms, she groans and stretches out her sore limbs.

The floor sways underfoot, nearly knocking her back down as she pushes herself up to stand. Using the wall as a brace, she makes her way towards the porthole to get a look at the open ocean beyond it. She frowns at the sight of choppy waters, and waves crashing against the hull of the ship making salt water mists obscure the glass. Though, for now there doesn’t seem to be any storm clouds overhead. The captain can tell her more.

Emily dresses as best as she could with the ship’s persistent jostling, pulling on a fresh cotton shirt and pants before shoving her feet into her boots. Unconventional fashion for a woman of her time, but constant voyages at sea has taught her that dresses are a hassle and a half to tame during days of high winds. Even more unconventional was her haircut. Cut above her ears and combed out of her face—a choice born both out of practicality and personal taste—she perhaps looked right at home amongst the ship’s crew rather than the academic passenger she actually is. Despite garnering her disapproving looks over the years, she maintains the style regardless. It isn’t as though she stays in one place long enough for opinions of others to be relevant anyway.

She leaves her quarters, but not before slinging on her satchel. Her trusted instruments inside clink and clatter as she climbs the stairsteps towards the main deck where she shields her eyes against the harsh morning sun and equally harsh winds.

“G’mornin’, Miss Pope,” greets a passing crewmate, Remus. He waves to her while balancing a sack on his shoulder.

“Good morning,” she returns. “It’s strange seeing you on the main deck.”

He laughs. “Don’t I know it. I feel awfully blind down here, but I’ll be back in the nest as soon as I help Cho get these supplies in order.”

“I see. Would you know if the captain is about?”

“Aye,” he jabs a thumb towards the stern of the ship. “I take it you’re wantin’ to ask about the unsteady waters we’re having.”

“It was quite a rude awakening, I will say.” She glances skyward, as if expecting to see storm clouds suddenly brewing above them. Again, there was nothing, but it still doesn’t quell the growing sense of unease and inevitability in the pit of her stomach. “Thank you, Remus. I’ll leave you to do your work.”

“Aye, ma’am. Keep your feet firm on the deck. Wouldn’t want you to get blown overboard.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Just as Remus said, Captain Simon Arish stood at the ship’s stern. His posture is ramrod straight, hands folded behind his back, and eyes fully trained on the horizon. He was once a first mate on this ship before inheriting it from the retired captain Lin Salvador. It was quite a pair of shoes to fill as Salvador was prolific in his seafaring career. 

A cargo ship by trade and a passenger ship by favor, Arish and his ship were one of the few that Emily could trust. They could hardly consider themselves colleagues—their professions couldn’t be more different—but they still shared a number of mutual friends until they were able to cultivate a friendship of their own. It’s due to this development that Arish has allowed Emily passage on his ship as often as her studies required her. In this instance, they have just left a city renowned for its furnaced goods, namely glass wares. As of now they are returning home, however it’s at a slower rate than yesterday.

“Stare at the ocean any harder and it’ll take it as a challenge,” Emily shouts over the wind.

Arish turns his head, smiling as she approaches. “Maybe I am. With winds like this, we have to go on at half-sail. Damn near snapped one of my masses.”

“You think it’s a storm?”

“We had red skies earlier.”

Emily nods at the implication, though the lively crew buzzing behind them should’ve already been indicative enough of Arish’s wariness.

“How long until we see it?”

Arish’s frown deepens as he studies the sky, as if there was some hidden text revealing its secrets to him. “Hard to say,” he eventually says. “Could be tonight, could be tomorrow morning. I pray that we’ll make enough headway to avoid getting caught in the heart of it, but assume the worst anyway.”

“I’ll prepare myself accordingly.” It certainly won’t be her first time in a storm, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she was used to or remotely confident in them.

“Good.” Arish turns and walks back towards the back of the ship. Emily falls in step beside him as they make their way into the captain’s quarters. Glancing at his profile, she could see that there’s a wistful smile on his face despite the grim topic.

“You know, times like these remind me of when I was a kid my father used to say that storms were caused by Ahti’s stampeding water horses,” he says as soon as they were out of the winds and inside the shelter of his quarters. “I imagined that they got out of whatever corral held them to cause havoc on the seas and whatever unfortunate ship happened by.”

Looking at the restless sea from the large set of windows at the back of the room, Emily tries and fails to imagine the picture he was painting for her. Regardless, she humors the notion, “Water horses? Well, that’s an interesting way of conceptualizing storms.”

“Your parents never shared any stories like that when you were growing up?” Arish laughs incredulously, shedding his navy coat and tossing it on the plush chair at his desk.

“My father was... a very practical man,” Emily says, absently drifting over to one of the bookcases. “He didn’t express much interest in fiction, let alone folktales.”

“Sounds pretty dull to me.”

“‘Practical’ tends to veer into that realm,” she nods. “It’s been interesting though, hearing all the different tales that I’ve been missing on. Your crew in particular is enthusiastic about retelling ones about Ahti.”

Arish smiles wide, pulling out a silver pendant on a long chain from beneath his shirt. Its surface is engraved with sharp waves and a fish speared by a trident above it, the symbol of the aforementioned sea god gifted to those who took him on as a patron. Everyone on the ship wore one. “A god with some out-there tales,” he says fondly. “Good to know that my crew still has good taste.”

“Happy to help bolster your faith in them.” 

“I’m surprised they haven’t convinced you to take him on as a patron yet.”

“I don’t think I’d be compatible with a sea god,” she reasons while her hand mindlessly clutches the strap of her satchel. “Or any god, really.”

He tucks the pendant back under his shirt. “You never know. It just takes a little time and some guidance to find the right one—”

“Simon,” she sighs, cutting him off. “I know where this is going and I appreciate your concern, but I don’t need a patron.”

Sentiments towards the Pantheon and the mysterious ‘Council’ that oversees them never appealed to her. As if her appearance didn’t draw enough attention to her, her choice to eschew a godly patron was a glaring mark on her character. And yet somehow she can’t go two minutes into a lecture without hearing the murmurs about how her intelligence was surely a blessing from the goddess Educa herself, and _not_ from her years of toiling through academia and spending countless sleepless nights studying the sky until she’s made the discoveries that have earned her her reputation as a prolific astronomer. The goddess of intelligence and scholarship _would_ make an obvious choice for a patron. After all she’s popular amongst professors and students alike. 

But call it spite, call it stubbornness, Emily has done well enough for herself without the influence of deities.

Arish raises his hands placatingly. “Sorry, sorry, conversation over. Anyway, how’s that contraption of yours coming along? Usually you’re jumping at the chance to talk about your progress but you’ve been pretty quiet since we left port.”

Grateful for the subject change, Emily digs through her satchel. Buried beneath her compass, sextant, and journal, is a cylindrical object made of shining brass. She pulls it out, revealing its simple design and extendable capabilities similar to that of a conventional naval spyglass.

The captain notes that the object is a tad larger in circumference than the one hanging on his belt. That, and the lenses looked noticeably thicker as well.

“I commissioned a glassmaker to have these lenses made for me. It’s taken some time, but using the mathematics and the results of previous trials,” Emily exhales an ecstatic breath and holds the telescope out for him to take, “I’m sure that this is far more powerful than any spyglass out there. With this, I’ll be able to view the stars themselves.”

Then she sighs, disappointment creasing between her brows. “Tonight was supposed to be the first test trial but given the circumstance I may have to wait.”

“The stars, huh.” Arish turns the device over in his hands. It’s heavier than he expected, and clearly durable in its craftsmanship. Emily certainly spared no expense in commissioning only the finest metal and glass workers to help create it.

He extends the telescope to its full length, and chuckles as a thought suddenly occurs to him.

“What’s so funny?” 

“Nothing,” he assures with a shake of his head. “Just thinking about what Polaris would think about your endeavor.”

“Polaris?” Emily sifts through her well of knowledge for a trace mention of the name in her travels. Only a passing statement comes to mind. “As in the northern star?” Why would a star care about such things?

“Close. She’s the Guiding Star goddess. It can be a little confusing but their names are one and the same. She’s younger than the rest of the Pantheon, and mostly keeps to herself so there’s very few stories to tell and even fewer followers. At least, that’s what I’ve heard from Salvador,” he says with a shrug.

Emily crosses her arms. “Let me guess, you’re going to warn me that I’m about to earn her ire for making something like this.”

He returns the telescope to her. “I wouldn’t be laughing if I was. She’s a deity of guidance, I think that’s about as benevolent as they come.”

“Well. Benevolent or not,” Emily snaps the device back to its compact form, “it won’t stop me.”

To that, Arish smirks and rounds about the desk to sit with a relieved grunt. “Wouldn’t have you any other way, my friend.”

***

By nightfall, the winds chilled straight to the bone and proved far too dangerous to risk being up in the Crow’s Nest. Remus had warned her as much when she inquired to use it for her first trial of her telescope. 

So instead she resorts to the porthole in her quarters. Working by candlelight is frustrating in conditions like these. The glass glints with flickering orange, obscuring the stars; and the swaying ship casts the light elsewhere instead of on her journal where she _needs_ it to be. But she works through it regardless. 

With her journal perched on her lap, and her telescope in hand and poised against the glass, Emily alternates between scratching out her notes and peering up at the inky sky above. Just as she had hoped, the telescope gives her renewed sight. If only there weren’t any clouds to intrude on this new world that has opened up to her. Pinpricks of light that she managed to find amidst the gathering storm clouds fell under her curious, magnified eye. What were once mere white dots in the night, were now given _color_. Questions about their positions, what determines their coloration, and other inquiries were marked in ink by Emily’s hand.

Punctuating the end of another paragraph, her eyes eventually find a bright star, brighter than any others surrounding it. One look at her compass—with its needle pointing North—told her all she needed to know which star this was. Polaris, the Guiding Star. 

She sighs, falling into deep thought as the conversation with Arish from earlier replays in her mind. A goddess who guides and yet keeps to herself? “What a contradictory deity,” she murmurs. It’s... surprisingly human that a goddess would inhabit such opposing qualities when gods are supposedly the pinnacle of what humanity should achieve. 

Polaris, a ‘younger’ god; implying that gods are somehow born from something at a point in time rather than having existed indefinitely and forevermore. Again, another surprising semblance of humanity. Though nothing is created or really destroyed in matters of the universe, something she’s come to theorize over the years.

On a curious whim, Emily raises her telescope and points it towards the star, daring to cross the threshold into a goddess’s domain. A noncommittal hum sounds in the back of her throat when she, of course, observes nothing noteworthy. What exactly is she expecting that she hasn’t already gathered from Polaris's neighbors?

For a moment there is only the warm creaking of the ship and the muffled hush of waves outside as she watches the bright star. She does take note that it’s a soft baby blue, unlike those that were yellow or orange. Strange indeed and oddly... soothing.

Just as that thought flits across her mind, a sound tickles her ear and perks them up at attention. Chimes, like glass gently brushing against another in a succession that reminded her of her mother’s wind chimes blowing above their porch. It echoes in her eardrums, reverberating through her skull in a low hum, so low that she just barely notices it. 

She blinks. Her vision shifts. Zooms. Blurs. The back of her right eye begins to ache.

Before she could blink again to ease the sudden discomfort, something comes into focus: a large structure of sleek stone, a dome of crystal, a blanket of space above it; a breathtaking sight that she’s never had the capability to even imagine. Where is this? _What_ is this? How is this possible?

Seconds later, the scene shifts into an even stranger sight. Residing within the structure, a woman—with fiery red hair, otherworldly clothes, and swirling blue eyes—looks right back at her. They lock gazes, mutual in their surprise of being _seen_. The woman’s lips part, trying to push out a question through her shock.

Blue fractals dance around her and the ache becomes a sharp sting. Emily recoils in her seat with a hiss as her vision careens back into her room. The telescope fumbles from her grip, clattering to the floor alongside her journal while her hands fly to clutch her eye. Her thoughts reeled with disbelief; they screamed through the painful throb ricocheting against her skull; they questioned, desperate for rationality of what she’d just witnessed.

When the pain subsides, Emily slowly opens her eye, blinking through the gathered tears. The room is a harsh blur of candlelight, shadows, and the faint residual afterimage of the blue crystals. It isn’t until several seconds later that her vision finally refocuses.

She sits with shaken breaths, replaying and processing her vision into that strange structure. With equally shaky hands, she goes to retrieve her telescope. _It must’ve been some trick of the candlelight, a stray glare in the porthole,_ her weak logic tries to reason. 

As powerful as her contraption is, finding a _person_ inhabiting a star shouldn’t be possible. Not just any person either. 

_Could that have been...?_

She raises it to Polaris once more, but it’s no use. Clouds drape over the sky, crackled lightning flashes into the room, and thunder rolls over the sea. Above deck, she could hear the roar of Captain Arish’s orders for all hands to their posts.

The storm has arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this chapter was enjoyable and not too exposition dumpy. we'll be back in jesse's pov next chapter :3  
> as always you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/Ashtree111)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this got way longer than i expected but here we are! hope you enjoy

A star she had documented two centuries ago, a star she had named Estella, died today.

By pure coincidence, she arrived at its location in the final moments of its life as it was expanding larger and larger, growing in heat and light until its form could bear it no longer. In a fiery flash and a corona of red and orange, Estella exploded. 

Polaris shielded her eyes, feeling the full brunt of the starfire, but not to the point of injury—never to that point. And she could do nothing else except wait helplessly as the closest thing to a kindred she’s ever known dies right in front of her. 

Several breathless seconds later, the afterglow of the star’s familiar yellow and the thick nebula cloud left in its wake surrounds her. She couldn’t believe it. While she’s seen many deaths of stars in her time, imagining the same fate—let alone actually witnessing it—for Estella had never occurred to her. The star couldn’t have been _that_ old...

Estella was one of the first stars she found that wasn’t the red one warming Earth. It was small, too small for anything to fall into its orbit, leaving it all alone in its own little pocket of the universe where the closest star was seven hundred thousand miles away and the nearest planet was too far for Polaris to want to measure at the time. Now that pocket was barren where only nebulous dust lingers from the star’s fiery demise. Such was the nature of these celestial bodies.

Perhaps it was foolish to harbor sentimentality within Infinity’s tapestry, but she couldn’t help the fact that she sees—had seen—herself in it. Both of them floated alone in their own corners of space with nothing close enough to acknowledge their existence. Polaris found it though. She studied it, documented it, saw that it was alive just as she is.

And now, as the astrolabe takes her back home, she mourned that it had once lived. She grieves for it and clutches the small vial hanging around her neck that stored a portion of its nebula.

Before long, she arrives at the Observatory. No matter how many times it opened its dome ceiling for her in the two centuries since both their awakenings, it groans and creaks just as loudly as it had the first day. She doesn’t mind it though. This place is older than she’ll ever be and it had every right to express it however it wished. 

In a flash of light, Polaris materializes at the top of the room and falls. Levitating at the last second, she lands silently on the azure mosaic tile floor, however the heavy sigh that escapes her seems to echo endlessly. 

The Observatory is hardly as spartan as it once was. Trinkets from Earth and pieces of furniture she learned to craft over the years breathed life into the room. A clock ticks over the patchy hammock she has strung up on hooks and chains, though there wasn’t a particular time zone she has set it to. Along with the shelves upon shelves of books and scrolls stand little bronze and clay figurines of animals and characters of fairy tales, and she’s strewn up old and tattered maps on the walls regardless if they were accurate or up to date.

Polaris shrugs off her sleeveless coat and mindlessly tosses it in the general direction of her hammock. Her limbs were like lead trudging through molasses, wanting nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep.

But she has work to do.

At the far end of the room stood her work table; an old wooden desk littered with her star maps, writing tools, and a thick tome already opened to a blank page to log her new entry. She pushes it aside though, and instead takes an older tome from the shelf overhead. Among the dozens and dozens of books lining the shelf, she easily picks out the one she needs. Flipping through the yellowing pages, she just as easily finds the entry she made of Estella.

She exhales, sinking into her chair as she traces a finger over the words she had written so many years ago. She skims through the paragraphs, taking in her past-self’s excitement and her obvious uncertainty of what she was supposed to note about the star. The Council never exactly clarified what they wanted from her. As a result, the entry was lengthier compared to her recent ones. She named it, described it as best she could muster, charted its position, noted its distant neighbors, and there the entry tapered into almost a journal entry as she wrote about how akin it was to the Guiding Star and, by extension, herself.

Polaris lifts the vial from around her neck and uncorks it. Wisping vapors billow out from the opening before she tilts the bottle and lets it pour over the pages. Fluorescent colors wash over the ink, making the pages glow as vibrant as the star it documents. She squints and shields her eyes against the light until it begins to dim and what’s left is the brilliant yellow lingering on the pages, and the candescent blues and greens replace the plain black ink.

She smiles, strained and just one muscle away from a frown. “Goodbye,” she whispers and delicately closes the book.

While there are other glowing pages similar to Estella’s in her collection, none of them have quite impacted her quite like this...

Polaris shakes her head at herself, feeling ridiculous and quickly replaces the book on the shelf. There are other celestial bodies that she’s discovered today that need recording while her memory of them is still fresh.

Quill in hand and inkwell opened, Polaris distracts her attention away from her grief—away from the creeping existential dread of what would happen to her, to the Observatory, if the Guiding Star were to one day die as all stars do—into scratching out her entry.

In between paragraphs, she combs her fingers through her bangs hanging over her tired eyes before switching over to chart the star she was writing about on a map. All the while, the clock ticks on indifferently. 

Minutes or hours later, in the midst of blowing the ink dry, familiar blue fractals appear in her vision, as well as the distinct feeling of... being watched. That in of itself isn’t a new occurrence. After all, the Guiding Star has been a staple for navigation for generations now, she can often tell that there were those looking to it for direction. But this was the first time she’s ever felt _seen;_ scrutinized, even.

How could that be? What was seeing her?

The fractals grow denser, tugging her attention fervently towards the top of the Observatory. The dome, still opened from her arrival, had shifted at some point to display the scope of planet Earth. Dazed with wary curiosity, Polaris rises from her chair. Her vision dips in and out of focus on the planet until the Observatory falls away from her peripherals. 

She squints and raises her hands upward to hold the shifting dome in place. Concentration creases her brow. _What is watching me?_ she demands, pushing all her will into the Observatory’s lens for an answer.

Then her vision is suddenly filled with a dark open sea, and sailing through its churning inky black waters is a ship with warm lanterns lit from bow to stern. The view shifts towards the ship’s right side where a singular illuminated porthole awaits her. A silhouette, dimly lit by candlelight holds aloft a peculiar spyglass. A spyglass who’s lens stares directly at _her._

A quiet gasp escapes from Polaris’s lips and her hold on the Observatory falters for just a moment.

 _Who are you?_ The question begs to be asked. But it remained lodged in her throat that was constricted by her shock. After another beat, the silhouette flinches and the spyglass is lowered to reveal a woman with boyishly short blonde hair rubbing her eye in silent irritation.

The vision ends right then, and Polaris finds herself once more back in the Observatory. Her arms fall to her sides, freeing the dome to resume its usual leisure rotation as disbelief and wonder war within her.

Her gaze never breaks away from it as her hand presses against her chest, right over her rapidly beating heart.

That...

“What the hell?”

Never in all her years has this happened before. How was a mortal able to see her?

Perhaps it was just a fluke, or just a one time occurrence and she should return to her previous work. It wouldn’t do well to slack off, otherwise she’d have the Council on her case and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

But the need to know had already caught fire within her and she went to retrieve her coat from where she had tossed it earlier. She’ll deal with the Council later, she _needs_ to do this.

The astrolabe glows at her hip, sensing their imminent departure while the Observatory hums in preparation with the lense remaining fixed on Earth.

Once her coat is on, Polaris slowly inhales and leaps into the air. The astrolabe warms and vibrates against her, thrumming with its power as she rises higher and higher towards the top of the dome. She keeps the image of the dark sea and the ship lit with lanterns firmly in her mind’s eye. More importantly, she envisions the mysterious woman traveling on that ship. She needs to know who she is and how she was able to see her star.

After a handful of seconds, there’s a tug on her stomach, like an abrupt motion jerk before Polaris becomes light and disappears.

***

A blast of wind slams into Polaris when she enters the Earth’s atmosphere, knocking her clear out of the sky. Getting accustomed to the sudden change in gravity is often an obstacle to overcome whenever she decides to pay the planet a visit. But coupled with the unexpected strength of the wind, she’s left utterly unprepared.

Up and down becomes indistinguishable as she plummets into the ocean below with no time to reorient herself. The rush of freezing water and torrent of bubbles rushing to the surface fill her ears, and the force of impact from the fall sends a painful ache through her body. With her nerves shocked and frayed, Polaris could only float. She couldn’t see anything in front of her, only the dim moonlight for a brief moment before storm clouds swallowed it whole.

“Well if it isn’t the Council’s little favorite,” a voice laughs, sounding slightly garbled as it traveled through the water. “Rough landing there, Polaris?” 

She squints through the darkness and residual bubbles floating around her. Though she couldn’t see completely, she knew that voice, and it’s a shame that she couldn’t openly groan in response lest she loses precious oxygen in the process.

A bioluminescent form swims closer until she could make out a vague silhouette of a young man with long dark hair and sharp, slitted golden eyes that penetrates through the dark depths along with a glimmering sea-green tail. His hand sticks out towards her, holding out a sliver of kelp for her to take.

Just as her lungs started to burn, Polaris eats the proffered plant. Salt stings her tongue and the after-taste is unpleasant, but she isn’t in any position to complain. The effect is mercifully immediate and, after swallowing it down, she heaves a breath of relief. 

“Thanks,” she says once her breathing evens out. Light gradually returns and the figure in front of her comes into focus.

Prodeus crosses his arms over his bare chest, a hint of a smirk on his lips. “So what brings you here? Tired of space yet?”

“Hardly,” she quips. “I’m just passing through, but the winds knocked me off course. Speaking of which, I thought Ahti told you to keep the weather fair until he got back from vacation.”

“I was,” he defends with hands raised in surrender as motions for her to follow him deeper into the depths. Soon they arrive at a corral of whale bones and barnacles housing a herd of water horses. One look at them, and right away she knew where this was going. “But the horses are starting to get restless, so I was going to let them out for a while.”

Panic surges through her as she thinks about the ship she came here to see. “You can’t let them out,” she objects. “There’s a ship out there, they’ll capsize it!”

“Still?” Prodeus's head cranes back and he huffs to himself in frustration. “The winds must’ve been too strong for them to sail at full capacity. But it’s all the more reason to let the horses run, Polaris, they’ve been cooped up for too long. If I don’t do it now they’ll break out to do it on their own, and we both know that the storm will be much worse that way.” As if to prove his point, one of the water horses thrashes against the wall of the corral. Its restlessness and eagerness to run spills into currents, causing the water to stir and pulse around them. The merman moves to soothe the horse, but with minimal effect. “Besides, mortals survive storms all the time. What’s so special about this one ship?”

What could she say? Even _she_ doesn’t know the answer to that. All she knows is that she needs to find out why she had that vision of the woman onboard. There’s a pull there that she hasn’t felt since her union with the Guiding Star. “It... it just _is_ ,” she says pitifully.

He raises an unconvinced brow, but with the rowdy water horses constantly drawing his attention he lets out a frustrated sigh. “I’m still letting them out. But if that ship really means that much to you, then you need to help me keep the herd in line.”

“Wait, what?”

Prodeus holds out seaweed reins with an expectant stare. “Want this storm tamed? Then you’re going into the heart of it with me. You’ve done it before, yes?”

She has. Twice over the past century in fact, and back then the herd was half the size it is now. Storm management was one of her least favorite favors to do for Ahti and he knew it. She and storms don’t mix, and though she couldn’t quite explain why, there was something about them that left her... unsettled. 

Even so, she needs to ensure that that ship makes it out of this unharmed. If this is what it takes then, “Fine,” she says, and takes the reins in a tight grip to mask her trembling hands. “Let’s do this.”

***

Waves crash against the hull of the ship, tossing the people onboard to and fro as they scramble across the deck. Calls for action and barking of orders erupt above and below Emily, but they’re easily drowned out by cacophony of thunder.

She keeps herself braced against the wall, monitoring her breathing and staving off the brewing anxiety in the pit of her stomach. Her candle had long since blown out and with each flash of lighting that enters the room, her nails dig deeper into her palms and a sharp wince creases between her brows.

 _It’ll be over soon_ , _it’ll be over soon,_ Emily thinks to herself over and over. The ship jerks once more in sync with a roll of thunder and she fails to stifle a whimper.

She knows that the storm has only gone on for a few minutes and not hours like her anxiety perceived it. She knows Arish and his crew are more than capable of navigating the ship through it in one piece. She knows all this. And yet she cowers all the same.

“Irrational,” she mutters through her clenched teeth. Inhale. Exhale. “Utterly ridiculous and childish.” The back of her head thumps pitifully against the wall. Eventually, she manages to force her eyes open. 

“It’s just a storm. You’ve been in several others before.” While that statement held merit, those other instances weren’t immediately following the occurrence of a scientific anomaly. Something she is still very much processing.

Against the dark room, there was no hiding the swirling blue crystals dancing in her vision. No matter how many times she rubbed her eye or squeezed it as tight as she could without giving herself a headache, they remained present. Though, admittedly, they were calmer and fainter than their initial appearance. Like Polaris’s unusual blue amongst the reds and oranges of its brethren, the dancing fractals were... soothing to watch. Inexplicably, Emily had a feeling that they were purposely trying to reassure her.

She had no hypotheses as to what it meant or if there were further symptoms to expect, but it doesn’t seem malicious and aside from the initial irritation, there was no pain. And there’s at least one other thing she’s been able to glean from an observational standpoint: she can only see them in her right eye. The same eye she used to look through the telescope and saw the woman in the star, she also notes.

The crystals shift, gathering around the porthole with insistent density. Now more curious than anxious, Emily shuffles over on unsteady feet. As she neared it, distant windchimes tickle her ears.

Peering through the rain pelted porthole, she sees nothing except the rolling storm. The crystals swirl faster, spiking her heart rate with wary expectation. _What’s happening?,_ she thinks and just like that, the crystals disperse. 

Just in time for lightning to flash and her eye to catch something breaching the surface of the restless ocean waves.

A gasp rips from her throat and she presses her face against the glass, but streaks and droplets of rainwater are all that could be seen.

No use. She needs to get a better look, and she swallows the lump in her throat knowing that that meant going up on the main deck. The crystals return for a moment, once more feeling as though they were trying to calm her nerves.

Such a strange night she’s having. 

But all the same, she leaves the cabin and climbs the stairs up towards the deck, stumbling and tripping as she went. Emerging from the doorway reveals the flurry of action of the ship’s crew. Shouts rang out over the torrent of rain, howling winds filled the stormy air, and misting salt water obscured everything within five feet of her vision.

Emily fruitlessly wipes the rain from her eyes and she makes her way towards the side of the ship. Lightning flashes overhead, illuminating the violent waters for a split second, long enough to make her think that she had seen something.

She tightens her grip on the rigging when another flash of lightning occurs and— _there_. She sees it. A horse breaks through the surface of the dark ocean, shaking its misty mane against the reins restraining it. With the crack of thunder overhead, it bellows a shrill whinny.

Her eyes widen. A... water horse? Not just one, but _several_. 

One by one they erupt from the ocean and gallop over it as if it was a windswept field of grass and not a raging ocean storm. The relentless pounding of their hooves causes the water itself to ripple and rise in height, creating restless waves as the herd dashes onward.

“Storms caused by stampeding water horses,” she breathes, echoing Arish’s earlier words. His childhood folktale is... true?

If her disbelief wasn’t already prominent, the sight of a woman fighting back against the creature trying to throw her off its back certainly cements it. Fiery red hair, matted down with rain, and a bright coat of blues and greens that almost doesn’t even look solid stands out against the dark of the storm.

She stares transfixed as the woman shakes the water from her hair, slicking it back and away from her eyes. Then she takes the reins in both hands, using it to wrestle against the water horse until it calms. With a sharp dig of her heels, she spurs the creature forward in hot pursuit of the stampede.

“Pope?! What in the gods’ name are you doing out here?” Arish shouts at her.

“You don’t see that?” she asks incredulously and jabs a finger at the herd of mythical beasts.

He looks and his frown is further creased with confusion. “See what? Are you feeling alright?”

 _He can’t see them?_ Emily wonders.

Someone calls for him at the quarterdeck, and before he leaves he fixes her with a stern gaze that’s glazed with concern. “We’ll talk later. Just get back below decks.”

Emily knows that she should, but she remains rooted in place as Arish turns his attention back to the state of his ship. How could he not see that his father was right about the water horses? There’s a literal stampede of them right _there_.

Though, an idea comes to her right then. Keeping her gaze locked on the herd, her hand slowly rises to cover her right eye.

And the herd vanishes.

Her hand falls away.

The herd reappears.

“Oh.”

***

 _I can do this_ , _I can do this_ , Polaris chants to herself and steers her horse until they are coming up beside the herd. Prodeus follows suit, taking up guard on the other side, calling forth a small wall of water to further direct their path. For a moment, the two gods manage to keep them in order and, more importantly, away from the ship. But all too soon, one of the horses turns its head curiously when the vessel enters its vision. It whinnies and takes off in a sprint, breaking off from the herd.

“Polaris!”

“I’m on it!” she calls back with the flick of the seaweed reins. In no time at all, she catches up with the runaway creature and veers it off its course, away from the ship’s hull. 

But before she could bask in the small victory, she finds herself going still, even though her horse gallops on. Blue crystals enter her vision and she follows them until she sees what they were trying to show her. The woman she had seen from the Observatory was looking at her, jaw agape with disbelief and gaze wide and unblinking despite the pelting rain on her face lest she miss a single detail. 

What happened back at the Observatory wasn’t a fluke after all. The mortal could _see_ her. As Polaris stares back, all thoughts cease in their tracks with the exception of one: _How?_

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ship, Prodeus spurs his horse on faster, his attention firmly locked on another that broke away from the herd. He wasn’t going to make it in time to stop it.

“Polaris! Incoming!” he shouts as loud as he could.

At his call, both Polaris and the woman snap out of their shared reverie and turn their heads in his direction just in time for the stray water horse to crash into the ship, its form turning into a massive wave that lurches the vessel sideways.

Wood creaks and groans painfully from the impact. Most of the crew lose their footing but manage to grab a hold of something to keep from sliding across the deck as it fills with seawater.

The woman wasn’t as fortunate.

She loses her grip on the rigging she had clung to and tumbles over the side of the ship. A clap of thunder drowns out her startled cry, but Polaris hears it just as loudly as the splash that follows soon after.

“Pope! Shit, man overboard!” a crewman shouts in a panic.

Polaris already has her horse in a full gallop, her power pulsing within her as she pushes herself up to a crouch. When its form shifts beneath her the closer they get, Polaris launches forward with an extra push of her flight ability. She feels the spray of seawater against her back as the wave brought on by the water horse realigns the ship once more. 

Polaris rolls onto the deck, taking only seconds to scan her surroundings until she spots a coil of rope.

Tying one end to the ship’s center mass and holding the other in one hand, she bounces on the balls of her feet in time with her mental preparation. On a sharp exhale, she breaks into a sprint and dives after the drowning woman.

Polaris feels an unshakeable uneasiness when she lets the cold ocean embrace her a second time; like an echo of an ingrained paranoia she knew not the origin of. She has little time to ponder it though and she swims deeper.

Meanwhile, Emily flails and kicks her way to break through the surface. She tries to keep her head above the water and take in gulps of air. For a moment, she thinks she hears Arish calling for her, but another wave buries her again. Salt stings her eyes and throat, and her heartbeat roars in her ears as her lungs begin to burn.

_It’s so dark—-where’s the surface?—is this it?_

_I’m going to die..._

Desperation fuels her limbs to keep fighting, keep trying to escape.

Further and further still, Emily feels herself sinking into the dark depths. Precious bubbles of air escape past her lips. Consciousness starts to slip from her grasp. 

But not before the blue crystals reveal themselves again, illuminating the space around her long enough for her to make out a silhouette frantically swimming towards her. There was no mistaking the sight of bright red hair. Before she knew it, the woman from the star was right in front of her. Held between her teeth was what looks to be the end of a rope and she goes to tie it around Emily.

“Hold on. You’re going to be alright,” she says somehow, despite being underwater. If Emily wasn’t oxygen deprived, she’d think about this impossibility more. Or perhaps chalk it up to hallucinations.

Again, Polaris feels the deja vu return. The echoing storm overhead muffled by the deep, her swimming to save a drowning person... Has she done this before? Has she dreamt it?

She shakes the thought away— _one thing at a time_ —as she wraps an arm around the woman’s waist and calls on her flight once more. 

Distantly, Emily feels a tug on her body, the rope going taut as she’s pulled upward. The woman remains beside her and... is propelling her up as well?

Cold air slaps across Emily’s face as she breaches the surface and her nerves kick to life. She coughs violently, expelling the stinging salt water from her lungs and her hands shoot to grasp at the rope until her knuckles go white from the vice grip. The momentum of the pulling has her barreling towards the side of the ship though, and she braces for impact. 

It doesn’t come. 

The woman twists their bodies around and grunts as her right shoulder slams against the unforgiving wood in Emily’s place. “I’ve got you. You’re almost there,” she says through gritted teeth.

It is then that Emily notices the way that the woman’s irises are unnaturally blue. Bright as candlefire against the storm and they swirled like the crystals that have been dancing in her vision.

“...P-Polaris?” Emily stammers.

That gets the woman to finally look at her and their gazes lock. All at once the gravity of their meeting, as unconventional as it is, dawns on them both. 

After a beat, Polaris smiles. “Hello.”

But before any semblance of a response could sound between them, Emily feels hands gripping her arms and she’s hauled over the ship’s railing and onto the deck.

“Now there’s a lucky lass!” a crewman cheers, clapping her on the back before he goes to cut the rope from her waist. Soon after, a blanket drapes over Emily’s soaked shoulders and she immediately holds it tighter around herself to relish in any warmth it has to give. 

Arish kneels beside her and speaks in a soft voice, “You with me, Pope? How’re you feeling?”

Emily swallows through her salt raw throat, yet her voice still comes out in a painful croak. “F-fine. I’ve done enough swimming to last a lifetime, I think.”

The captain chuckles dryly, shaking his head in disbelief at the sudden show of humor. “Glad to hear it. That was some quick thinking; grabbing the rope before going over. Looks like we’ll make a sailor out of you yet.” He helps her to her feet.

“That wasn’t me,” Emily says. “It was...” She glances around for the woman, Polaris. But she’s nowhere to be seen. Did no one else see her when they were dragging Emily back onboard?

“What are you on about?” Arish laughs again. “Too much seawater got in you?”

Emily says nothing. Her body goes numb, either from the shock of cold or just shock in general, is difficult to discern. She notes that the storm has calmed down somewhat, and she barely makes out a trace of one of the horses as it runs further and further into the distance.

Her posture deflates and she rubs her temple. “Maybe.”

“Let’s get you below decks and out of those clothes then. Can’t have you getting sick on us now.”

“Right...” she acquiesces, already noticing that the water was seeping through the blanket. “Thank you, Simon.”

As the captain escorted her away, Polaris lays idly on the rigging that crosses the Crow’s Nest, looking down at the scene with relief and a thousand and one questions swirling about in her mind. 

But all the same, the smile from before—wistful and longing in the way it lifts her lips up so effortlessly—still persists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/Ashtree111)

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/Ashtree111) where i try to post regular updates on my projects but instead just end up cherry bombing finished products. kinda like now heh go figure


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